Posts Tagged ‘turkey’

The picture quality isn’t great but here’s some alarming footage from a Turkish shopping mall. At about one minute in, the Some daft-arse kid who has been mucking about gets stuck on the escalator’s hand rail and before he knows it, he’s whizzing his way up to the top of the thing.

Luckily, a shopkeeper gets wind of what is happening and rushes out to catch the errant urchin as he falls to his near-certain death. Give the man a balloon AND a badge for his efforts.

Here’s a kind of public service announcement from The Singing Sewermen of Thames Water, urging us not to pour hot turkey fat down the drain this Christmas “because it cools in the sewers, sets hard and causes horrible blockages.” We can think of a few other things we’ve seen struggle round the U-bend that might fall into that category as well. But we digress.

To hammer home the message, the sewermen (and women) have recorded this, their own version of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, but as they’re all from London and they’ve recorded it in a fucking sewer, it’s a bit tough to figure out what they’re barking on about.

We’re pretty sure that we picked up the line “Put your fat in the rubbish in the bin, not in our Lynn,” at about 18 seconds but to be honest, the rest of it could do with a bloody good subtitling. And who is ‘our Lynn?’ Is that a pet name that has been given to the London sewage network? Some kind of secret code? We fear we must be told.

Incidentally, did you know that an estimated 500 tonnes of fat – the equivalent of 1.8 million standard blocks of lard – goes down the Thames Water drains every December alone? If you think really hard about it, it’s exactly the same as driving a giant bus made out of cancer straight through a tiny matchstick village that has been built by starving orphans.

See, simple English tourist? It says it’s Asda, so it must be Asda – just like where you live in the UK, right? Admittedly, there’s a rather more extensive range of inflatable rings and beach towels and the newspapers will gladly rip the arse out your wallet, but all in all, yes. It’s definitely Asda. No two ways about it:

Spotted in Turkey by keen-eyed Bitterwallet reader Richie, who says: “Before you name your paragliding business, it might be worth doing some historical research into your chosen name. That way you can reduce the chances of scaring away potential customers.”

As a tribute to our very own Paul Smith, aka Twitchhiker, who will soon be setting off around the world armed only with a laptop, a toothbrush, some mace spray and a Twitter account, here’s some more orthodox ways to trot across Mother Globe without spending a fortune.

All bargains were found on HotUKDeals and unlike Twitchhiker, you probably won’t be murderded in your borrowed bed by a psycho loner during your stay.

First up, we’ve got a 5-star all-inclusive luxury holiday in Turkey with a free room upgrade, all for the barely-credible price of just £259 per person. There’s also wild and crazy activities galore, including water skiing, wind surfing, tennis and volleyball.

We’re wide-eyed, but that aside, it sounds a bit iffy to us, and we’d expect to get pressganged into some kind of intergalactic fighting force halfway during the stay. If you’re not afraid of that possibility, there’s more info here. Eeek!

Next, it’s Virgin Atlantic’s 25th birthday, as you might well know if you’ve seen that crappy advert they’re running to commemorate the fact. Looks like it was scripted by Beardy Branson himself but that’s the sort of thing you can do if you’re the boss and ‘a bit groovy.’

Griping aside, there’s some cracking offers available over the coming weeks, and at the moment you can hop on a flight to Noo Yoik (where the tap water comes in bottles) for as little as £225.

Lastly, we’re back in Europe, and to be completely specific, Rome. Home of the Romans, as well as Romulus and Remus and Romeo from ‘The Adventures Of Romeo.’

Waffling aside, here’s a deal for a hotel with bed, breakfast and ‘extras’ for just £43 per night. You’ll have to click on the link to find out what the extras are, but they don’t include being locked in a chest freezer by a Dutch mentalist who you met over the internet. Good luck Paul!

Glad to be seeing the back of George Bush next month? What if we told you that one of his final acts as President was to create a raft of new jobs? What’s more, it’s not even in the USA, with belies his image as a man with nothing but disdain for the rest of world.

The lucky workers are based in the Istanbul-based Baydan Shoe Company in Turkey and spend their days making Model 271, the very shoe that journalist Iraqi journalist Muntazar al-Zaidi hurled at the idiot President last week.

Baydan boss Ramazan Baydan reckons he’s had to take on another 100 staff to help churn out 300,000 extra pairs of the shoe, with orders flooding in from around the world.

If I recall Christmas Day as a child correctly, then my mum would start preparing dinner before the sun had risen, and it’d be some six hours later before we tasted the fruits of her labours. Now it’s far less effort to find an open branch of McDonalds. Admittedly the experience isn’t entirely replicated in the company of Ronald & Co, but at least you don’t have the washing up afterwards.

Mark Bittman has a better idea. Don’t skimp on the Christmas Day dinner – enjoy the full works as usual - but cook that 12lb beast of turkey in just 45 minutes. Not only does that mean more time to indulge in all-day drinking, but you save on your extravagant yuletide fuel bill, too.

The secret is to cut the backbone out of the bird, an act which sounds daunting but minimalist chef Bittman assures us isn’t, and flatten it out in the pan. Read Bittman’s full instructions here or click on the video above, and learn how to cook a turkey not only quicker, but more evenly. Yum.